The Last
by VilyaSage
Summary: [Abyss, oneshot] They had been fighting for such a long time now that Luke had stopped trying to measure it. They hid it well, but they were tired and hurt and running out of time.


_**Endgame** spoilers. That's all the warning you get. Other than that, enjoy your read! (I certainly enjoyed writing.) _

_---_

**The Last**

"Resurrection!" Light filled Luke's vision as he opened his eyes, recognizing the end of Tear's arte and quickly getting to his feet again. This was hardly the time to be caught not paying attention. He had failed once already, apparently, if Tear had needed to revive him.

"Thanks," he called over to Tear, but she was already absorbed in the casting of another fonic arte. Luke glanced around him quickly, raising his sword again; things weren't looking good.

They had been fighting Van for such a long time now that Luke had stopped trying to measure it. Guy and Jade were distracting Van to give Tear time to cast again. Luke grimaced when he looked at Van now – the man had somehow…_merged_…with Lorelei, restoring and multiplying his power. Van showed no signs of tiring; Luke and his companions were on their last reserves. They hid it well, but they were tired and hurt and running out of time.

_This is bad_, Guy found himself thinking as he frantically blocked blows from Van's blade. His hands were almost shaking from the effort, and Van was not relenting. At the first opportunity, Guy ducked under a swing and shifted into a quick back-step. When he had put enough distance between himself and Van, he took a breath.

"Center!" Guy regained just enough energy to meet Van as he approached at a confident stride. He almost smiled when Luke appeared beside him, swinging. "About time."

"You try being unconscious," Luke shot back, dodging and jumping around Van's strikes and strike artes with an unusual precision. Guy had to admire his friend's focus, the curious renewed purpose with which he fought.

"_O roar of the earth, bring forth the fangs of the mighty dragon_." Jade cast his hand down as he released his arte, the glyph beneath him disappearing. "Ground Dasher!" He frowned in irritation as Van dodged out of the way, shoving Guy toward the spell in the process.

"Guy!" Luke yelled. He ran, standing beside his fallen friend and calling up a Guardian as the spell unleashed beneath them. They remained unharmed, and Guy nodded in thanks as he stood up again.

"_O divine spear, run my enemy through_." Tear's eyes were locked on Van as she chanted quietly, following his movements as he turned to attack Guy and Luke again. "Holy Lance!" This time, her brother had no chance to run, and he took the brunt of the attack from behind.

Luke took advantage of this, rushing Van and claiming the offensive with a series of hard slashes and swipes. Van managed to parry the majority, but several attacks got through, and Luke grinned. "Lightning Blade!" he yelled, thrusting the Key of Lorelei forward forcefully at the same time as a burst of third fonons shot through him.

Van backed up several steps, cursing. Guy and Luke advanced together; with a shout, Van sprang back at them, neatly jumping out of the way of the Prism Sword arte that Jade had just cast.

Luke was shoved aside with one hard swipe, crying out as Van's blade drew a fiery line across his chest. He landed and rolled away, stunned. Van advanced on him again, but Guy intercepted, charging him from the side and leaping into the air. At the top of his jump, he seemed to jump again, launching beyond the reach of any attacks Van might try.

Luke was still fighting to get up when Van's shadow fell across him. His former master sneered down at him. Luke stood quickly, forced backward by the power of Van's attacks, out of breath and losing energy fast. He stumbled, falling back and closing his eyes tightly, as though trying to prevent the final stroke he knew was coming.

The next few seconds were a blur of sound and frantic calls, but it was Van's voice that emerged over the others. "Such lamentation." Luke opened his eyes again and drew in a sharp breath as Van roared, gathering and releasing enormous amounts of fonic energy. "Celestial Elegy!"

"No!" Luke stared in horror as the full force of the attack struck Jade, sending him flying. The colonel had moved in front of him defensively as Van was preparing his mystic arte. Jade hit hard and skidded slightly; he did not rise. Luke jumped to his feet again, motioning to Guy to keep Van busy. _Why did he…why did he stand in front of me like that? Why did he have to try to protect me?_

Luke ran across the replicated ground to where Jade was – he still hadn't moved – glancing over at Tear in the process. She began casting, but Van broke her concentration with an attack. She cried out, clutching at the deep wound in her shoulder; the look she gave her brother held nothing but absolute betrayal. Guy caught up to Van again, drawing the man's attention away from Tear and back to close combat.

Luke knelt beside the colonel, grimacing at the sight of the damage Van had done. The colonel was a bloody mess, the front of his uniform turning dark with it; his spear was nearby, having fallen from unfeeling fingers, and his glasses had been blown off as well. Jade was still breathing, at least, Luke noted with a relieved sigh. He looked around for Tear again, shocked to find Guy, too, motionless on the ground not far away.

Tear's face remained impassive as she slowly backed away from her brother, her staff clutched in numb fingers. She tried to recall a hymn, _any_ hymn, but her mind drew a complete blank. Van smiled at her, but it was a smile without humor or affection; it was the face of an enemy who knew he had won.

"I won't let you do this, Van," Tear warned, an arte glyph sparking into being beneath her. She took a step back, into the middle of the bright circle, and held her position, holding her staff out defensively in both hands. "You won't win."

"I said to you that our next meeting would be as enemies, Mystearica," Van intoned gravely. "I keep my word."

"You liar!" Luke tackled Van from behind, throwing the taller man off balance. He sprang off as Van rounded on him and leapt forward, rage fuelling his attacks. "Everything you've done has caused nothing but death!"

"You have hardly done any better," Van countered as he and Luke entered a startlingly familiar pattern of strike-and-parry. They had trained this way hundreds of times before. Van's smirk widened; Luke never won.

Luke's resolve only hardened at this. "No. You can't use that against me anymore." He raised his eyes in a glare so recognizable that Van was actually startled. "I've lost too many people I care about – too many _good_ people – to let you get away with this plan." He drove the Key of Lorelei forward, unrelenting.

They matched each other strike for strike, again and again, a repetition as much a part of each of them as their names. It was a routine that had not changed in seven long years, one that Luke had not used since the day he was blown out of the manor by his own hyperresonance. With a harsh, mocking laugh and one well-timed thrust, Van deviated from the routine.

Luke sank to his knees. Van's sword descended with him, embedded in his stomach. Van turned with a flourish and unleashed some sort of attack on Tear, but Luke was too dazed to tell what it was. He stared down at the hilt of the sword; it didn't even hurt. In fact, he really didn't feel much of anything.

He knew defeat when he saw it, though. He gathered what breath he could, turning his head toward the stairs that had brought them to this fated battle.

"Anise! Natalia!" He knew they were there, just out of visibility or reach of any artes. They were the backup plan, the two people who were to stop the replication if Van won the fight. "It's over! _Go!_"

Luke fell forward as Van reclaimed his sword; he thought he screamed. He _definitely_ felt something now. He wanted to stand again, to pick up the Key of Lorelei from where he had dropped it and keep fighting. But he didn't have the strength, and Van was standing above him, drawing on the fonons necessary for another mystic arte.

"Behold," the man called, already reveling in his victory, "the power of Lorelei!" Energy gathered in his hands; Luke stared up at what looked disturbingly like a hyperresonance. "Farewell!"

There was a flash of light. Luke closed his eyes again, recognizing his failure. _Everyone who died for this…for me, that I might be able to stop Van…all of them died for nothing. All those lives were…wasted. I…I did this. I'm…sorry._

"_Toue lei zue kuroa ryuo toue zue._"

Luke's eyes snapped open and he looked at Tear. She was standing, holding herself up using her staff, and singing. Van's attack had stopped completely, and he was staggering back and away, growling. Tear looked surprised, but continued singing, straight through the second and third hymns.

At the completion of the third, Luke felt some of his strength return. He managed to stand, using the Key to help him. "Keep singing, Tear! Do them all!" She nodded, moving into the fourth hymn. Luke smiled a little in recognition of that one as it had its usual effects and the hole through his abdomen closed.

He advanced on Van, brandishing the Key. Tear finished the seventh hymn, a surprised look appearing on her face.

"Th-that was…I…" she whispered. Luke would have smiled back at her, had Van not appeared to be recovering.

"Sing it again, Tear! All of it – the entire Grand Fonic Hymn!" She nodded to him, taking a breath and starting again. Luke stared down at Van, who had stumbled in his retreat and was now half-sprawled on the ground, defenseless.

"This is _it_, Van," he said coldly, glaring at the man he had once called master. "After you, there isn't going to be any more death for the sake of this fight. No one else is going to lose their lives for the safety of the world, replica _or_ original." Luke sheathed the Key and raised both hands together, feeling the fonons beginning to gather.

-

_"You'll need to use the Seventh Fonon to free Lorelei." Jade's eyes were solemn behind his glasses. "Most likely, you'll also have to use hyperresonance in the fight. Those will place an enormous strain on your current condition."_

_Luke looked up at him, feeling his hands begin to shake. "…You mean I'll die?" _

_-_

Tear was still singing, almost through the fifth hymn – no, the fifth _part_ of the Grand Fonic Hymn. Luke looked down at Van again, the hyperresonance forming between his hands nearly complete.

_I don't want to die…I only just realized why it matters that I live…but if I don't kill Van, then everyone will disappear…just like me. …I don't want to die! _

"This ends here, and now!" Luke yelled. Van's eyes opened in surprise and fear. He tried to say something, but he couldn't form words. "You are the final death my actions are going to cause!"

_But if this is what it takes…to make sure _they_ live…then I'll do it._

"Do you hear me, Van?" The whole of Luke fon Fabre surged forward into this, his final attack. His own words echoed softly, unusually, in his mind.

"You're the last!"

"_Lei va neu kuroa toue lei lei._" The Grand Fonic Hymn finished. Luke felt as though a power he could not hope to comprehend was racing through him, focused fury bent on release.

"_Now you die!_" Luke let go of the hyperresonance, the most powerful blast of his mystic arte that he had ever been able to create. In the blinding explosion of light that followed, between the screams of Van and Tear and Luke, the body of the man who had fused with Lorelei disintegrated.

The light faded. Luke blinked away the last remnants of it, shaking his head. There was no longer anyone in front of him; Van was gone.

"Revive!"

"Resurrection!" Natalia and Anise appeared at the top of the stairs, with the latter riding Tokunaga. Anise jumped off the doll as it shrank and quickly wrapped her arms around Luke in a tight hug.

He barely had time to react to that, because just as quickly she let him go and went after Jade with a similar assault. The colonel was sitting up and had just replaced his glasses. He raised an eyebrow at Anise's actions, but he was smiling and made no move to disengage himself.

Guy stood, too, rejoining Luke and giving him a light punch in the shoulder. "You were holding back on us this whole time, weren't you?" He laughed quietly; Luke saw sadness in his eyes. Natalia approached them at a slower pace, practically shaking with relief.

"I…I honestly thought that…" She looked up at Luke, shaking her head. "Never mind. It isn't worth mentioning."

Jade looked down at Anise, ruffling her dark hair. "You can let go now. I think you've sufficiently proven that I'm still alive." He noticed with interest that her shoulders were shaking. "I _am_ still alive," he repeated firmly, gently prying her arms from around him so he could stand.

"I…I know, Colonel…but…" Anise sniffed a bit, standing too.

"We appear to have been victorious," he continued, one hand still resting reassuringly on Anise's shoulder as they, too, joined Luke and the others.

"Yeah, we were," Luke said quietly, looking over at Tear. "I…I guess I have to release Lorelei now."

The five looks he got all had the same mix of relief, joy, and overwhelming sadness. He almost wished he hadn't brought it up. But they were running out of time. _He_ was running out of time.

---

He watched them leave, pulling the Key of Lorelei from its sheath.

_"You're the last!"_

Luke hoped he would be able to _keep_ his promises.

---

_Thanks for reading! I appreciate any comments you'd like to leave. :) _


End file.
